The following discussion of the background to the invention is intended to facilitate an understanding of the present invention. However, it should be appreciated that the discussion is not an acknowledgment or admission that any of the material referred to was published, known or part of the common general knowledge in any jurisdiction as at the priority date of the application.
The amount a service provider charges for certain services is often dependent on a range of factors. However, clients of such service providers wish to have an indication of the costs prior to engaging the service provider to provide such services. This conundrum is often resolved by the client and the service provider meeting face to face such that the service provider may put questions to the client aimed at eliciting the information required by the service provider to provide a reasonably accurate indication of costs for providing the requested service(s). However, it is not always possible or practical for a face to face meeting to take place.
An alternative method of obtaining the required information is for the service provider to put the same set of questions to the client over a telecommunication link. While this allows the service provider to provide to the client a reasonably accurate indication of costs for providing the requested service(s), in situations where the service provider requests or requires advance payment for providing the requested service(s) the telecommunication link is often required to be terminated until such time as the advance payment has been made and confirmed as received by the service provider. Once the advance payment has been made and confirmed as received by the service provider, the service provider or client must establish a further telecommunication link to handle the provision of the service by the service provider.
In such a situation, the client may become less enthusiastic about the service and never follow up with payment or may be frustrated by the delay required in obtaining the service resulting from the above system to the point that another service provider is engaged to provide the service. In either situation, the service provider has lost the sale.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a payment system that can be activated at any time during a telecommunication link to facilitate payment from a client to a service provider without the need to terminate the telecommunication link.